1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and systems for monitoring contact center operations.
2. Description of the Related Art
Contact centers, including traditional voice-only call centers as well as multimedia contact centers adapted to handle contacts in other media, employ numerous agents, having various skillsets or attributes, to service customer load. Meeting the needs of the customers in a timely and efficient manner is paramount to a successful and profitable contact center. Thus, it is often desirable for the real-time operation of the contact center to be monitored by a third party, such as a contact center supervisor. In this way, information deduced by the third party may be employed to more efficiently instruct the agents, to thereby improve the productivity of the contact center and the quality of service being provided to the customer.
Currently, contact center supervisors tend to employ two methods of monitoring the real-time operations of a contact center.
The first method involves utilizing interfaces provided at the supervisor's terminal, which are arranged to display real-time contact center and agent performance statistics. In particular, these interfaces allow supervisors to observe sessions between agents and customers, and to “whisper” or prompt agents with advice or answers where appropriate, unbeknownst to the customer. Furthermore, the statistics provided to the supervisors at their terminal by advanced contact center applications permit objective measurements that complement real-world observations, and allow supervisors to make adjustments of the contact center configurations as they deem fit.
The second method employed by the supervisors involves physically walking around the contact center work floor, observing the work of the agents. In particular, the supervisors are concerned with the interaction of the agents with their interfaces, such as agent desktop application activity, and, in the case that an agent is involved in a voice call session with a customer, observing the agent's side of the voice call session. This second method provides the supervisors with important insights into the behavior and reactions of the agents that may not necessarily be possible to infer from real-time statistic monitoring from the supervisor's terminal. In some cases, supervisors are equipped with a mobile software console capable of displaying a subset of contact center statistics, which can be employed whilst the supervisor walking about the contact center floor. However, such mobile software consoles are generally incapable of furnishing the supervisor with the extent of information available at their terminal.
In general, it is accepted that the most effective manner of monitoring contact centers is achieved by carrying out periodically both of the above-described methods.
Thus, there is a need for an improved method and system for monitoring contact center operations, and in particular, for monitoring agents of contact centers.